Since attics aren’t visited and used regularly, most homeowners tend to overlook them. However, the attic actually plays a vital role in ensuring proper ventilation and energy efficiency in your entire home. To keep your attic in great condition, regular inspection, cleaning and attic animal removal should be practiced.
Small mammals, such as raccoons, squirrels, and rats, love to build their nests in an ideal space, just like your home’s attic. A lone animal in the attic can progressively grow its population, and you may only start to notice their presence once they’ve already caused significant damage to your home.
Here are some of the usual damages animals in your attic can do to your home:
Chewed Wiring
If you’re currently experiencing electrical problems in your home, a good place to look is the electrical system found in the attic, especially if you’ve committed a mistake on hiring inexperienced electricians. When electrical lines are spliced or cut, some electricians tend to leave them behind without any junction box and cover. This could be extremely dangerous as attic animals, like raccoons, squirrels, and rats, love to chew on different items, and electrical wiring is some of their favorites. Because of the wirings’ rubber exterior, these animals gnaw on wires to prevent their teeth from growing excessively.
When neglected, chewed wiring can cause electrical outage or, worse, start a fire. Extracting these animals from your attic and having the electrical system fixed by a professional can help solve the issue.
Contamination
Once your attic has been invaded by animals, they will treat this place as their permanent habitat. Along with building their nests and growing their population, expect that they’ll contaminate your attic with urine and feces, along with other infestations, like nesting materials, trash, and pheromones.
After eliminating these animals, make sure that proper cleaning and decontamination will be conducted. You can hire professional attic decontamination services with comprehensive techniques to clean up your attic effectively.
Chewed Wood Furniture
Aside from electrical wiring, your wood furniture and anything that’s made of wood aren’t safe from these attic animals. In some cases, pests and rodents can even enter your attic through gnawing on the soffits and eaves of your attic.
Moreover, cabinets and storage made of wood serve as an ideal space for these animals to build their nests. They’ll get their way inside through chewing on wooden furniture. Just like with wiring, animals chew on wood materials to condition their teeth.
Luckily, you’re more likely to notice these pests living in your attic when you hear them chewing on wood. If you start hearing these chewing noises, don’t hesitate to investigate your attic and contact attic animal removal services immediately.
Grease Stains
No homeowner would like to have nasty, foul-smelling grease stains, especially on their attic walls. When you spot these brownish stains on your visit to the attic, it’s a huge sign that rodents and bats could be living in your attic and are inviting more unwelcome visitors into your home.
Fortunately, attic experts use these brown stains from rodents’ and bats’ coat to identify the entry points of these animals and seal them. In this way, you can prevent more animals from pestering your attic.
Torn Air Ducts
HVAC systems keep your home safe and comfortable through regulating proper ventilation and indoor climate. To supplement the HVAC systems in distributing air flow in various parts of your home, ductworks are important. Since many households have some of the ductwork located in the attic, pests never miss out on infesting them.
During the colder and hotter months, attic animals tend to search for shelter that will keep them warm or well-ventilated. Since air ducts serve as passageways into comfortable areas of your home, animals, specifically rodents, will crawl through your ducts, as well as chew and destroy them.
When these rodents eventually die in the passageways, they leave behind their excrement, nesting materials, and even their dead bodies, which can pose a threat to your family’s health. Make sure to clean your air ducts to prevent these pests from coming back and protect your family’s health.
Wall Holes
Smaller pests, such as rodents, are mostly limited to chewing and biting objects in your attic. However, those bigger animals, like squirrels and raccoons, have stronger and sharper claws that can rip holes in your attic walls. Depending on what materials your roof and/or ceilings are made of, they can also be susceptible to poking and clawing.
Damage To Stored Items
Attics are typically constructed fundamentally for air ventilation and temperature control, but they also serve as a great place to store items that you don’t use on a daily basis. However, this can take a great toll on your stored items when attic animals start clawing and chewing onto these items. Usually, they damage clothes, books, and papers to create their own nests. Then, they’ll chew holes on wood furniture to build their nest inside.
Conclusion
Although these animals create a wide variety of damage into your home, keep in mind that it’s already embedded into their nature to seek survival. While you’re investigating their existence and the damage they’ve created, handle the situation humanely and don’t hurt these animals. This is why seeking professional removal services is a better option. You can find one at FindTheHomePros.com.
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